The Australian’s environment editor, Graham Lloyd, has attracted attention this week for something other than stories about the scourge of windfarms.
“Octopuses are from space, scientists say” was the catchy headline on Lloyd’s report about a scientific paper that claimed comets dropped the frozen eggs of octopuses from space.
I see your space octopus and raise you Ockham's Razor.https://t.co/mY7QRem2F2
— Dr Darren Saunders (@whereisdaz) April 18, 2018
Michael Brown, an associate professor in the school of physics and astronomy at Monash University, told Weekly Beast many of the claims in the paper had been thoroughly debunked. In 2016 Snopes reported on a flurry of news stories inaccurately reporting similar octopus claims, derived from a different academic paper.
Brown used language unsuitable for a family publication to describe some of the claims in the paper. “I suspect a professional biologist could kick even more holes in the journal article,” he said.
Can’t get no (staff) satisfaction
ABC management is working very hard to improve its relationship with employees after staff satisfaction fell from 52% in 2015 to 46% in the latest staff engagement study.
This week’s effort was an email from the communications team detailing “Michelle’s Top 5” – a list of things the managing director, Michelle Guthrie, had enjoyed recently. It included ABC TV’s Employable Me and Harrow, RN’s podcast on class by Richard Aedy, a local radio discussion on friendship and a digital feature on a discus thrower: “I binged three episodes on iView over the weekend!” Guthrie commented.
The efforts of the communications team to improve employee engagement do not seem to be working. Comments made to Weekly Beast about Michelle’s Top 5 included “very lame”, “infuriating”, “condescending”, “like they are talking to kids” and “waste of time and money”.
In between podcasting and binge-watching, the MD has had to face the departure of her right-hand woman, Samantha Liston. The director of engagement is stepping aside for personal health reasons on 25 June. A former head of human resources and Guthrie’s chief of staff and guide when she was appointed two years ago, Liston was behind the corporate jargon that has pervaded the ABC for the past year or so, including ThinkX, Change It Up, Bureaucracy Stop, Speak Up and Great Place To Work, which is an initiative to, um, make the ABC a great place to work. Liston is staying on to work on projects including Great Place to Work, which is about “culture, leadership development and gender equity”. Liston’s other roles will be split between Rebekah Donaldson (general manager people and culture) and Louise Higgins (chief financial officer).
Denton past his prime time?
The new Andrew Denton interview show on Channel Seven is a good indication of how audiences for television have dissipated. Enough Rope, produced by Anita Jacoby, ran on the ABC between 2003 and 2008 and attracted well over a million viewers each episode. This week’s highly anticipated debut on Seven on the back of the Commonwealth Games managed just half that, with 578,000 viewers tuning in to see the great man interview Australian swimming champions Cate and Bronte Campbell, as well as rock legend Robert Plant. Social media was less than enthusiastic about the choice of the Campbell sisters, who were rather dull. Many were nostalgic for the days when Denton took on Bill Clinton, Bernie Banton and David Attenborough.
Mailing it in
Complaints about Daily Mail Australia reporters cutting and pasting other journalists’ work may be true, but they have one of the worst gigs in journalism. Weekly Beast talked to reporters in the wake of the sacking of April Glover on Monday. They confirmed there were no subeditors and they had to upload their own stories and photographs, with copy written to a predetermined angle and headline from the editor. Glover was working on Sunday and inadvertently published the infamous paragraph about reality TV contestants: “But most people who were educated at a high-school level know these vapid cunts only go on the shows to find mediocre Instagram fame and make a living promoting teeth whiteners and unnecessary cosmetic procedures.” No one read her copy before it was published, and it remained online for two hours.
It is not uncommon for inexperienced Mail reporters to be given five stories on a single shift and to be unable to make calls to carry out basic fact-checking before being asked to write another one. Sometimes trainees email their copy to editors to check, Weekly Beast was told. The treatment of Glover led the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance to write to the Mail saying its employment practices were to blame for such errors. “This level of personal liability puts an unreasonable level of stress on individual journalists representing a risk to their health and safety,” the media union said.
Sky fall-out
It may be a little tense in the corridors of Sky News Australia with the return of Chris Kenny to the news channel. After losing his Sky gig last year and saying he’d like to pursue a career in radio, the Australian’s associate editor and columnist has been welcomed back to the TV fold with a new two-hour program at 7pm on Sundays called, surprisingly, Kenny on Sunday.
It was a month ago that the feisty Sky News host Samantha Maiden attacked him on Twitter when he questioned why she was interviewing the Greens senator Nick McKim. “Because it’s not an echo chamber featuring me wearing a Liberal Party logo t-shirt Chris,” Maiden said, in a reference to Kenny campaigning for his Liberal candidate sister Therese Kenny in the South Australian election (she lost). “Journalism involves talking to all elected representatives. Is sensible. Is newsworthy. Is in national interest. Is not a brain dead echo chamber.”
Grand Final nerves. #savotes2018 pic.twitter.com/DVbQWuXUlK
— Chris Kenny (@chriskkenny) March 17, 2018
We doubt former Sky News host Peter van Onselen will ever do a Kenny and go back, given his recent track record in spilling the beans on the goings-on at Sky. PVO praised his former Sky colleague Kristina Keneally for making her maiden speech a year after she was subjected to a slur by then Sky host Mark Latham. The academic and political columnist also claimed that Sky News boss Angelos Frangopoulos “didn’t back her (appalling)”.
KK delivered her first speech in the Senate exactly one year after Latham defamed her on her own network (unbelievable) and KK's boss didn't back her (appalling). Talk about not looking back.... https://t.co/cuTH5SQbqb
— Peter van Onselen (@vanOnselenP) April 15, 2018
As for Latham himself, his options for expressing his views are rapidly shrinking since he lost his Daily Telegraph column and his Sky News gig. If you want to read about his latest antics, the Telegraph’s Claire Harvey wrote a scathing piece.
To add to the mess, Mark Latham’s Outsiders Support Group on Facebook has been closed down and a new one started up after it was taken over by people with even more extreme views than Latham and its own administrator has bailed.
